Mookie Betts promoted to Pawtucket

CLEVELAND — Highly touted prospect Mookie Betts has been promoted to Triple-A Pawtucket, the PawSox announced on Tuesday.

By Tim Britton

CLEVELAND — Highly touted prospect Mookie Betts has been promoted to Triple-A Pawtucket, the PawSox announced on Tuesday.

Betts will join the team in Durham on Tuesday night, starting in the leadoff spot and playing second base. He will presumably make his McCoy Stadium debut when the PawSox return home on Saturday night.

Betts had been tearing up the Eastern League for Double-A Portland, hitting .355 with a .443 on-base percentage and 27 extra-base hits in 54 games. That comes on the heels of similarly dominant runs at Single-A Greenville and High-A Salem a season ago.

“You look at his performance over the course of the season to date and he’s really excelled in every area of the game,” general manager Ben Cherington said Tuesday. “He’s controlling the strike zone, he’s running the bases, he’s playing defense, he’s obviously hitting, he’ s hitting for power.

“At some point, we have an obligation to challenge our young players when they are performing at a level where it’s not certain that they’re being challenged. It’s up to us to make sure that they’re being challenged.”

“It’s exciting to see a young player who at this time a year ago was in the South Atlantic League,” manager John Farrell said. “He’s moving quick.”

Cherington said the organization didn’t want to promote Betts earlier while it was also introducing him to the outfield. Betts, almost exclusively a second baseman coming into the season and for its first six weeks, has played 12 of his last 17 games in center field for the Sea Dogs.

“This conversation started a few days ago, and we wanted to avoid introducing too much all at once to Mookie,” said Cherington. “We knew that, because he had started to play the outfield, we wanted to give him a little bit of time to settle in in the outfield before also introducing him to Triple-A. So, now that he’s gotten a little bit of time in the outfield and he’s gotten comfortable out there, we felt like this was the time to move him up to Pawtucket.”

The plan remains for Betts to play both second base and center field in Pawtucket, splitting time at a similar rate to what he did toward the end of his tenure in Portland. He’ll play second initially for the PawSox just to get settled before playing in the outfield again later this week.

Betts has earned a promotion to Pawtucket after only 253 Double-A plate appearances; that’s quicker than Xander Bogaerts’ 259 last season. Given Boston’s continued woes in the outfield, might he be a major-league option sometime this season?

“You certainly can’t rule it out,” said Farrell. “He’s doing some things offensively that are eye-popping.”